Monday, 28 February 2011

the upcoming exhibition at the Wellcome Collection Dirt: the filthy reality of everyday life begins on the 24th March promising to reveal the fascinating world of filth! a flickr pool has been set up so naturally i had to leave a mattressland contribution...i think this beauty fits the bill perfectly....

just been watching the Oscars Red Carpet on E!...gawd, thinks i, that Kelly Osborne looks like the martian from Mars Attacks with her massive blonde beehive...and then 2 seconds later along comes Sharon Stone with the same look - sack the stylists! fave outfits of the night so far tho are Gwyneth Paltrow in Calvin Klein, Hilary Swank in Gucci, Reese Witherspoon in Giorgio Armani Privee and Jennifer Lawrence also in Calvin Klein.

special mention to Mandy Moore for her sparkly Monique Lhuillier number (shame she looks so stiff in the photos), too bad Scar-Jo's hair looked like she'd been dragged thru a hedge backwards and Jennifer Hudsons boobs were uncomfortably squished into her dress - ouch!

mmmmm....how delicious do these look - Eggs Rothko from the brilliantly named crepes of wrath - all you need are some brioche, eggs and a hunk of chedder/gruyere cheese....yum yum yum melty cheesey goodness....i know what i want for breakfast!

having just found a vintage absinthe spoon in a cluttered antique shop in Arundel...it got me thinking about trying la fée verte (or "green fairy") again - favoured tipple of bohemian artists of the late 19th/early 20th century such as Baudelair, Rimbaud, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde and Aleister Crowley - to name a few. absinthe is a spirit made from the distillation of herbs including wormwood, green anise and sweet fennel, which originated in Switzerland in the 18th century (tho wormwood was used medicinally in ancient Egypt).

following its popularity and eventual ban 200 years later, spurred on by the temperence movement who thought it drove people crazy, it had a resurgence of popularity in specialist bars in London in the 1990s and i remember trying a few times to experience the mythical hallucinatory trip following the ritual (or "louche") of dripping cold water over a sugar laden spoon (tho not to be burned like sambuca - this is an abomination to absinthe afficionados!) into a glass of the green liquid - but always with limited results; mostly just getting a lot drunker, a lot quicker. it turns out the hallucinatory effects are in fact mostly an exaggeration (those pesky poets) tho it does provide a clearer, cleaner state of drunkeness - it pretty much gives you the effects you would expect from the super strength spirit that it is. however, in the '90s there was only a poorer quality czech product on the market and nowadays there are a lot more higher quality varieties available. so i think it is time to experiment again soon.

i have been checking out various websites that rate absinthe and give you full and detailed instructions on how to perform the rituals. i came across a few articles via liqurious which definitely warrant further investigation, including some interesting cocktail recipes that contain absinthe. of the absinthe products listed i do like the vintage look of the Stranger & Stranger bottle, with it's eye on the bottle top - sadly unavailable to purchase - it was just a christmas promotional bottle.

Tenneyson Absinthe Royale apparantly has hints of gin and is perfect with tonic - so definitely sounds worth a try. i am also drawn to the mirror-bottle modern absinthe Fenom - i am such a sucker for packaging - blimey, this one is lo-cal...hmmmm...not so sure about that!?!

i bought a bottle of Pandor for my brother's 40th - purely on the strength of the great packaging and must ask him whether he has ever sampled it and can comment on its quality. i'm tempted to buy some myself - i just love that cheeky bottle!

Lucid, producers of a grande wormwood only recently available in the UK, have declared March 5th National Absinthe Day (tho i have a feeling this is primarily aimed at the US market!) - so it is certainly timely to sample this mysterious tipple....but with care...an interesting fact: the Russian word for wormwood is chernobyl!!

spring fresh looks via bettyjoy - can't wait! it was sunny and bright here in London yesterday and this morning, tho there are more cold spells ahead according to the weather men...but bulbs are popping up, daffs are about to bloom...spring is most definitely in the air....

since coming back from the wet and wild coast (and snotty children!) i seem to have developed a chill - so am on hot lemon, ginger, honey by the bucket load. thankfully i decided to buy one of these bodum tea for one cups - ideal for the healing concoctions and available in lots of pretty colours!

just a few other items i picked up while trawling charity and antique shops in West Sussex: a beautiful large serving plate with bright green & gold edging, some flower motif large bowls (just what i'd been searching for to eat pasta from) and a collection of knives, forks, spoons and even a few extra special spoons. the top one is definitely an absinthe spoon (which i've been looking for for ages now and can be quite pricey) and the other two are possibly mote spoons - which have caused much debate over their use - possibly as a fruit/olive spoon, a lemon strainer or even to skim the top from tea. i managed to get all items for only a few pounds...bargain!

i'm just back from a fab few days at the seaside with my friend Emma and her two beautiful burp-monsters Rex and Greta. it was a bit of a lastminutedotcom as a Emma needed a half term escape, i needed a little holiday and a friend of hers offered his beach house "Blue Skies" in East Preston (near Littlehampton) for the week. we arrived on sunday and sadly the weather wasn't blue skies...more like grey and rainy skies...but the beach was right outside the back door and the house was an old-skool beach house gem - full of quirkiness, religious iconography (very catholic family), with a funny little dining room, cupboards and laders, bedrooms with sea views and an upstairs dormitory which reminded me of school.

dinner in the b&b style breakfast room

dormie-style...just like school!

some interesting reading in the libary

the house is looked after by the gardener, Tony (Macaroni) an ex-pat from Sicily who collected me from the station with a hug & kiss (we're not in London now!) and was so chatty we thought he'd never leave - but he told us the previous tenants had been some international visiting monks on a retreat and that we had a pretty big challenge to beat in wine-consumption as he'd never had to take so many empty bottles to the recycling! he also informed us that all the single girls who stay don't remain so and that i should stand on the bedroom balcony and wait for passing suiters - sadly tho there were just a bunch of wet dog walkers passing by!

room with a view

the first day we took a trip to Brighton (poor little Rex couldn't quite get his bemused brain around why we were driving 40 minutes away to a beach when there was one out the back of the house, in fact we subjected him to this confusion every day until we finally took him out and flew his new kite on wednesday) where we enjoyed a great fish & chips lunch at English's and did a bit of shopping in the lanes, ending at JB's american diner - where Rex & Great were in heaven watching Tom & Jerry cartoons.

on Tuesday i was awoken by the little monsters all done up in face-paint - Emma had been up for hours doing tiger faces and making cup cakes - a mother's work is never done! Greta then had a go at doing me - tho i'm not sure whether she was going for the afghan hound or domestic violence look!

hhmmmm...how do i look? one HOT MESS!

we took a drive to visit the east beach cafe at Littlehampton as i had raved about the Thomas Heatherwick design (which Tony called a rust-bucket!) but sadly it was closed. so then we carried on toward Arundel and planned to visit the castle - but that was also closed! in the end we walked around the lovely town and managed a couple of antique shops and picked up a few more bargains before Mr Wobbly Legs had had enough!

Emma, Great & Rex - with Arundel Castle behind

Greta, me and Mr Wobbly Legs!

Emma's star purchase...a lovely chinese jewellery box

on wednesday we finally launched the kite Rex got in Brighton (on the grey-est, wettest, but windy-est day - great fun) and did a bit of beach-combing. then we had fish & chips again at Fred's in Littlehampton (an excellent recommendation from Tony Macaroni) before hitting the amusement arcade and then going home as the sea mists rolled in and i had to reluctantly head back to London on the train.

let's go fly a kite!

one happy little boy!

kite over Blue Skies...

it had to be done

there's a bear on the beach!

yum yum!

HOT CHICKS!

the first thing i did was unpack my lovely little beach watercolour that i picked up for a fiver in Arundel and then while out yesterday i spotted a matching beachy cushion in habitat and just had to have that too - to remind me of my lovely trip. i miss all my beach buddies and hope to go again when the sun is out and the skies are properly blue!